Federal Files: Empty desks; A Congressional warning

Six high-ranking positions in the Education Department remain
vacant, and department officials say the White House is to blame.

A spokesman said the department had sent names of proposed nominees
to the White House for every position but that of assistant secretary
for elementary and secondary education, and officials are anxiously
awaiting further action.

The other empty positions are those of deputy undersecretary for
management and assistant secretary for postsecondary education,
educational research and improvement, civil rights, and vocational and
adult education. All but the last of those slots were vacated by Reagan
Administration appointees in March; the vocational-education post has
been empty since May.

Although a lack of key personnel is not a problem confined to the
Education Department, the department was found to have the most
high-level vacancies of any federal agency in a recent survey by the
Washington Post.

By August 1981, in contrast, President Reagan had filled all the
Presidentially appointed slots at the department.

In a report accompanying the 1990 budget bill it approved last week,
the House Appropriations Committee issued a warning to school districts
contemplating drawing new theoretical boundaries to increase their
share of federal impact aid.

In June, the North Dakota Board of Education decided to make the
Grand Forks Air Base a separate school district, which would be
autonomous in name only for two years; then it would actually operate
separate schools.

During that time, its impact aid would go to the nearby Grand Forks
district, where air-base children are actually enrolled. The money
would be a boon to the system, whose impact-aid enrollments have
dropped to the point that it may lose eligibility for the highest level
of aid--and about $1 million a year.

Now other districts are considering the same maneuver, an
appropriations aide said last week.

The report says the panel is "very concerned about this
manipulation" although it may be technically legal, and directs the
Education Department to take action "to prevent this abuse."

The aide said that the Congress would "give the department a lot of
latitude" in changing policy, if that were necessary.

"But we really hope this will have a chilling effect within the
community, because they know very well that they are dependent on the
Congress for their money," he said.--jm

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